AUC screenwriter's movie in works

LANCASTER — Although the Atlantic Union College (AUC) campus has been quiet, graduates have been busy out in the world, including a screenwriter working on several scripts.

Todd Niemi, a Fitchburg native who graduated from AUC in 1990 with degrees in English and art, has been involved in "Backgammon," a movie slated for distribution later this year.

Now living in Fitzwilliam, N.H., he was commuting from Fitchburg while attending AUC, "and I was focused on my studies and on trying to earn enough money to pay my way through college."

Although his major involvement in the Lancaster community was as "a regular patron of some of the local businesses, such as The Trolley Stop and Jon's Pizza," Niemi said, "I grew very fond of the area during my years at AUC. South Lancaster and its neighboring towns will always be special places for me."

Niemi first got the spark that led to screenwriting when America literature professor David Knott had his class read Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative.

"I remember thinking at the time, 'This would make an incredible movie,' " Niemi said. "Soon after graduating I developed an interest in screenwriting. I read a number of books on the subject, as well as some screenplays, and I decided to adapt Mary's story into a script."

In the summer of 1995, he took a two-week intensive graduate course in screenwriting, taught by John Pielmeier, at the University of Vermont.

"For the class assignments I worked on scenes for the Rowlandson screenplay. Over the next year or two, I wrote roughly 70 pages of the screenplay," he said.

But screenwriting, as a profession, had to wait.

"When I graduated, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for a career. I was considering graduate school, but the thought of taking on more debt wasn't appealing" given his student loans, he said.

Having worked at the AUC library while a student, after graduation he accepted the staff position of acquisitions librarian.

A few years later, now married, "I transitioned into the technical writing field in order to make more money. When I was let go from my technical writing job in 2009, I determined to make a serious attempt at a screenwriting career," Niemi said.

He has been doing freelance work, but plans to complete three screenplays this year.

"If I'm able to do that, I'll have five screenplays that I can market. Hopefully, at least one of them will sell," he said.

"Backgammon" developed after Niemi read a novella, titled "Bloody Baudelaire," by English writer Raymond B. Russell in the fall of 2009.

"I really enjoyed it, in part because it shares some characteristics with Henry James's 'The Turn of the Screw,' which is one of my favorite 'ghost' stories," he said.

Losing his technical writing job, he had more free time; he got permission from the author to adapt it to a screenplay.

"We collaborated on the script," which he then posted on a site devoted to scripts. He was contacted by Francisco Orvaņanos, who wanted to option it. The final draft of the script included changes made by Orvaņanos, who directed the film, Niemi said.

"Backgammon" was filmed in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in June 2012. It is in post-production and slated for fall completion.

"One of the things still to be determined is how it's going to be released," he said. "The best case scenario would be a limited theatrical release, but I think the chance that this will happen is small."

Direct-to-video or direct-to-DVD or even cable TV are options, as is the possibility that it will premiere at a film festival.

"It's exciting work," Niemi said of working on screenplays, "but the excitement is tempered by a great sense of responsibility. I was naturally quite concerned about how (the author) would respond to my first draft. I wanted him to be pleased with it, and fortunately, he was."

The entire process was an education in itself.

"To be honest, I was a bit naive about the whole process. Though I knew filmmaking was a collaborative process, I was expecting our script to be shot pretty much as is, but that almost never happens. Unless you're Woody Allen or Quentin Tarantino, one should expect one's screenplay to go through numerous revisions before the movie's shot," he said.

Transforming a book to a film, "one needs to have a lot of patience," he said, "or perhaps stubbornness would be a better word, as it can be a tremendous amount of work to condense a novel into a screenplay."

In most cases, a screenplay will be a greatly distilled version of a novel, and it will focus on the things that can be depicted onscreen, he said.

For training, "Reading screenplays themselves is essential. In fact, if you were to do nothing more than read the Oscar winning screenplays of the last five or 10 years, you'd be well on your way to learning the craft," he said.

Niemi and Russell also completed a screenplay based on another of Russell's work, an unpublished novel called "The Dark Return of Time."

"The script's circulating among producers and directors at the moment, and it's already attracted serious interest from several actors," he said.

He is now finishing a screenplay based on Dennis W. Shepherd's book, 'The Elephant Lady of Thailand,' and once that is complete, he said, "I'll get back to work on a screenplay I began last year about the true adventures of a mountain man. I've queried Will Smith about it and he's agreed to read the script when it's finished. After that I'll be collaborating with Scott Sonnon, the martial artist and fitness coach, on a screenplay based on his inspiring life story," Niemi said.

Although it's been years since he set foot on campus as a student, Niemi said he hopes AUC can once again be a busy school.

"AUC was just a wonderful experience all around. The five years I spent there as a student, and the four-plus that I worked there as a staff member, were some of the best years of my life. I learned so much and formed so many important relationships while there," Niemi said, including meeting his future wife while working at the college library.

For would-be screenwriters, "the most important piece of advice I can offer is that they avoid making the mistake I made: I spent years doubting myself and reading dozens of books on the subject of screenwriting, in hopes of finding some magic formula that would make writing screenplays easy.

"Writing a screenplay is difficult, particularly the first time around," Niemi said. "The only way to make screenwriting easier is to write more screenplays. Each screenplay I've written has been an improvement over the previous one. So, don't waste time reading scores of books on how to write screenplays. Read one or two and then get to work on actually writing them."